55 Yard Line

Any combine always sees a lot of attention paid to the 40-yard-dash, and that's particularly true at something like Sunday's CFL combine where records fall. Both UNLV running back Shaquille Murray-Lawrence and Regina defensive back Tevaughn Campbell broke the CFL combine's previous electronic-timing record of 4.42 seconds (jointly held by Shamawd Chambers and Kris Richardson), with Murray-Lawrence posting a 4.41 and Campbell topping him later with a 4.355. (That's not the fastest combine time ever, as the CFL used to use hand timers, which often lead to faster times; Steven Turner holds the all-time CFL combine record with a hand-timed 4.31.) Campbell in particular has been one of the standouts of this combine, as he also impressed Saturday, and what he and Murray-Lawrence did in the 40 Sunday will definitely help their draft stock. Lots of other players did well in the 40, the shuttle run, the three-cone drill and the one-on-one sessions, though. As we did with Saturday's events, here are five other performances that stood out Sunday.

The easy takeaway from Saturday's events at the national CFL combine results is that Montreal linebacker Byron Archambault and Wilfrid Laurier defensive back Chris Ackie did the most to improve their stock. Both shone in Saturday's testing, with Archambault leading the combine with 41 bench press reps (the second-highest total ever at a CFL combine) and Ackie topping the vertical jump and broad jump leaderboards (with jumps of 40 inches and 10 feet, 11 inches respectively). However, there were plenty of other players who impressed as well. Here are five of them:

There's always been a surprising amount of depth of Canadian football talent, and the CFL has realized this in recent years. Formerly, promising players who weren't invited to the official combine for one reason or another had to show their skills off at alternative events such as Duane Forde'sNational Invitational Combine. The CFL began to hold its own regional combines in 2013, and that's led to a lot of success over the last two seasons. It's likely to do so again this weekend at the national combine, as the CFL has brought in 11 players from regional combines to compete on the main stage. That says a lot about how valuable regional combines have become.

The changes the CFL's rules committee was reportedly looking at this week's each had upsides and downsides, but the committee's actual recommendations to the league's board of governors have sorted out some of the potential issues. None of these rules are in place yet, as the board will review them later this spring and decide what to adopt (and the committee purposefully left at least one potential change, on another convert option, up to the discretion of the board), but now we have a fuller sense of what exactly is on the table. Here's a look at each change they're proposing, in order from easiest to accept to toughest.

It looks like the CFL is considering some substantial changes to its rules for this upcoming season, and many of them appear to revolve around reducing penalties and increasing scoring. That's likely a reaction to the dramatic decline in scoring we saw last year, with teams scoring 62.3 points less than 2013 on average over the course of the season. The question is if it's a justified and needed reaction, or an overreaction to a temporary problem. To figure that out, let's examine the proposed changes in detail; nothing official has come out yet, but Kirk Penton, Lowell Ullrich and Drew Edwards have all reported on what the rules committee seems to be discussing, and there are four main rules being talked about in all of those articles.

“I don’t think I would have a problem with it if they could support the team,” Pegula said after Tuesday morning’s sessions on Day 2 of the league’s annual meeting, at the Arizona Biltmore resort. “It’s a big enough market. I don’t know how that works with the CFL, though.” Really? Pegula does not possess a mindset of, ‘Hey, I’ve just paid all this money for the Bills, so the Toronto market’s out?’” “No, no,” he said. “And I believe I was asked that question when I was approved as an owner, and it was an affirmative answer to the league. I said I would support it if Toronto had a franchise … There are a lot of people there.”

Free agent defensive end Michael Sam, who last year became the first openly gay player ever chosen in the NFL draft, has already had an impact on the CFL. Now, the chances of him actually playing north of the border appear to be on the rise. Sam took part in Sunday's inaugural NFL veteran combine, but his performance there didn't earn him many plaudits, with his initially-reported 5.07 and 5.10 40-yard-dash times in particular coming in for criticism. There's important context to those numbers, which we'll discuss below, but what may be even more important are the comments from NFL figures about him. One NFL personnel director at the combine told Fox Sports' Alex Marvez that Sam's performance was "marginal," and TMZ reported Tuesday that one agent called him "flat out horrible," adding other criticisms from scouts and general managers. Like 40 times, anonymous executive comments need to be taken in context and with a significant grain of salt, but Sam's NFL chances do seem to diminishing, and he told Yahoo's Eric Adelson Sunday that he wouldn't rule out coming to the CFL, saying "If there's an opportunity, I'll take it." Just how likely are we to see Sam show up north of the border?

The NFL'sinaugural veteran combine, which takes place Sunday in Tempe, Arizona, has a fascinating list of 100 attendees, including former Missouri defensive end Michael Sam, former Arkansas running back Felix Jones and former Army quarterback Trent Steelman (trying out as a receiver). CFL teams will certainly be keeping an eye on the event, and may reach out to try and sign some new players who perform well but aren't picked up by NFL teams. However, there will also be some faces there who have already had CFL stints, especially at the quarterback position. Three of the seven quarterbacks in attendance, Jerrod Johnson, Keith Price and Darron Thomas, have been signed to CFL teams at one point.

When Edmonton quarterback Pat White elected to retire at 29 Thursday after just one season in the CFL, his decision surprised many, and it wasn't clear why he was leaving the game. White still hasn't spoken publicly about why he walked away from football, but as Chris O'Leary of The Edmonton Journal relates, Eskimos' head coach Chris Jones and starting quarterback Mike Reilly both attributed White's decision to concussions. White has suffered several of those over the years, including one in last year's regular-season finale that knocked him out for the playoffs. Jones told O'Leary Friday that White's retirement was similar to that of 24-year-old NFLer Chris Borland, who also walked away this offseason over fears of further concussions. From O'Leary's piece:

Despite officially retiring from the CFL in January 2014, famed quarterback Anthony Calvillo's still having a big impact on both Canadian football and Canada as a whole. On the field, Calvillo did some work for the Montreal Alouettes last year as an intern, and he officially joined the team as a full-time assistant in December and was named the receivers coach in January. Off the field, Calvillo has done lots of impressive things over the years as well, and he's continuing that around the country despite not being an active player. As Ian Hamilton writes in The Regina Leader-Post , Calvillo is in Regina for a fundraiser Friday. The reason he's there is particularly cool, though.